DRESS SHOE LOOKS OR BOAT SHOE COMFORT? FINALL YOU CAN HAVE BOTH. '-. .,"J"-.... , " >-............. " \ ,', - " , ----- - Introducing the Gold Cup Executive Casual Collection from Sperry Top-Sider': Equipped for maximum traction with outsoles that feature TC-4 Vibram@ technology. Styled for unmatched durability with handsewn stain and water-resistant leathers. And lavished with the ultimate comfort features - deerskin linings and triple-density memory SPERRY foam - that cradle your TOP - SID E R feet in luxury; The best you'll find on land or sea. )?T OLLECTlO WWW.SPERRYTOPSIDER.COM ADVERTISEMENT on the town BE THE FIRST TO HEAR ABOUT EVENTS, PROMOTIONS, AND SPECIAL OFFERS FROM NEW YORKER ADVERTISERS. DEAN KOONT We ha.ve you.r wife, Yau can get her back for 2 million- cash, The Husband KICK OFF YOUR SUMMER WITH BANTAM! Coming in the June 12 Summer Fiction issue, a revealing look at what inspires author Dean Koontz... plus a chance to win a signed, first-edition, hardcover copy of his new thriller, THE HUSBAND, along with ten other great summer reads. www.deankoontz.com III . )) Bantam 34 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 5, 2006 PERSONAL HISTORY MOVING ON A love story. BY NORA EPHRON I n February, 1980, two months after the birth of my second child and the simultaneous end of my marriage, I fell madly in love. I was looking for a place to live, and one afternoon I walked just ten steps into an apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and my heart stood still. This was it. At first sight. Eu- reka. Ten steps in and I said, "I'll take . " It. The apartment was huge. It was on the fifth floor of the Apthorp, a famous stone pile at the corner of Broadway and Seventy-ninth Street. The rent was fifteen hundred dollars a month, which, by Manhattan standards, was practi- cally a bargain. Trust me, it was. In ad- dition, I had to pay the previous tenant twenty-four thousand dollars in key money (as it's known in New York City) for the right to move in. I didn't have twenty-four thousand dollars. I went to a bank and borrowed the money. No one in the building could believe that I would pay so much in key money for a rental apartment; it was an astronomical amount. But the apart- ment had beautiful rooms (most of them painted taxicab yellow, but that could easily be fixed); high ceilings; lots of light; two gorgeous (although non- working) fireplaces; and five, count them, five bedrooms. It seemed to me that if I lived in the building for twenty- four years the fee would amortize out to only a thousand dollars a year, a very small surcharge. I mean, we're talking about only $2.74 a day, which is less than a cappuccino at Starbucks. Not that there was a Starbucks then. And not that I was planning to live in the Apthorp for twenty-four years. I was planning to live there forever. Till death did us part. So it would probably amortize out to even less. That's how I figured it. (I should point out that I don't normally use the word "amortize" unless I'm trying to prove that some- thing I can't really afford is not just a bargain but practically free. This usually involves dividing the cost of the item I can't afford by the number of years I'm planning to use it, or, if that doesn't work, by the number of days or hours or min- utes, until I get to a number that is less than the cost of a cappuccino.) But forget the money. This, after all, is not a story about money. It's a story about love. And all stories about love begin with a certain amount of rationalization. I had never planned to live on the Upper West Side, but after a few weeks I couldn't imagine living anywhere else, and I began, in my manner, to make a religion out of my neighborhood. This was probably a consequence of my not having any other religion in my life, but never mind. I was a block from H & H Bagels and Zabar's. I was half a block from a subway station. There was an all- night newsstand across the street. On the corner was La Caridad, the greatest Cuban-Chinese restaurant in the world, or so I told my friends, and I made a re- ligion of it, too. But my true religious zeal focussed on the Apthorp itself. I honestly be- lieved that at the lowest moment in my adult life I'd been rescued by a building. All right, I'm being melodramatic, but that's what I believed. I'd left New York City a year earlier to move to Washing- ton, D.C., for what I sincerely thought would be the rest of my life. I'd tried to be cheerful about it. But the horrible re- ality kept crashing in on me. I would stare out the window of my Washing- ton apartment, which had a command- ing view of the lions at the National Zoo. The lions at the National Zoo! Oh, the metaphors of captivity that leaped to mind! The lions lived in a large, comfortable space, like me, and had plenty of food, like me. But were they happy? Et cetera. At other times, the old Clairol ad-"IfI've only one life to live, let me live it as a blonde" -rever- berated through my brain, although my